When the Delhi Under-19 team was announced ahead of the
zonal one-dayers recently, Bishan Singh Bedi expressed disgust at some of the
selections. In a letter dated October 1, he lashed out at seven selections
calling them a result of proxies and influential people. He named Suryansh
Tyagi, Utkarsh Singh, Viren Singh, Tejas Broca, Karan Bidhuri, Arjun Khanna and
Ishan Kantewala as those undeserving and forced into the team for the Vinoo
Mankad games.
Well, it wasn’t exactly wrong criticism. The Delhi team
management didn’t play all of them and of those that played, one or two did
come up with important knocks. Irrespective of the criticism, the team went to
win the North Zone league which was largely thanks to efforts of vice-captain and
dashing batsman Himmat Singh who hammered two back to back hundreds and got a
half-century as well.
There is no doubt that Himmat is one of the best talents
around and the selectors, rightly it seems pushed the Modernite’s name for
captaincy for the days’ version --- the Cooch Behar Trophy. Quite a few of the
names mentioned above are in the U-19 team, and their parents have reportedly
threatened to sue the officials of NCT (the body formed by Bedi & Co for
fighting the ills in DDCA) if they continue to malign the names. An official
with the current sports committee confided that the parents are ready to sue
the officials if they don’t stop spilling the beans.
